Through Tragedy
by MarauderBlood
Summary: Through tragedy comes understanding. Through tragedy comes more emotion than anyone could have imagined, and that couldn't be more true than for George Weasley and Hermione Granger. When everyone seems to wrapped up in their own grief to notice how much George is suffering, Hermione seems to be the only exception.
1. Grief

Grief was normal. Grief was inevitable. Everyone felt the heavy burden of Fred's absence, but no one wore it quite so thickly as George. They may as well have killed him to, Hermione thought to herself darkly as she observed the slow way he moved and the way that his eyes never seemed to lift from the floor or whatever task he was doing.

It wasn't like it had been long. Only a month had passed but people were trying to move on. The need to call George together with his twin's name was involuntary and the way Mrs. Weasley still set a plate for her lost son was tear-jerking. Hermione always tried to keep her composure. It wouldn't do well for everyone for everyone in the household to be numb. She tried to keep the normalcy alive and tried to keep everyone functional.

"I don't know how you do it," Ron admitted one night. They lay side by side in his twin bed, allowed to share a room due to the fact that they were technically of age. The argument to allow them to stay in the same room was a short lived one due to the fact that it was evident on Mrs. Weasley's face that she just didn't have the fight in her. Hermione almost simply would have shared the room with Ginny, but Ginny was fairly insistent on having Harry in her room, and that would also mean that Ron would have to share with George, and no one wanted to intrude on that.

"Do what?" Hermione asked drowsily. Ginny had become quite apt in making a sleeping drought. It wasn't extremely powerful, but it was enough to calm their minds and allow them to sleep dream-free.

"Stay so put together," Ron admitted. He had himself propped up on his elbow as he looked down at his almost-sleeping girlfriend. It almost seemed tactless for them to have started a relationship so soon after George's death, but it brought them comfort.

"What's the alternative?" Hermione asked. She opened her eyes a little more because she could hear the urgency in Ron's tone, like he needed to talk in that specific moment.

"Be broken like the rest of us."

He sounded so emotional, so very unlike-Ron. Hermione cupped his face in her hand tenderly for a moment and offered a small smile. "None of you are broken. You're just grieving."

"And you're not?"

Was that the whole intention of this conversation? Hermione felt her irritation rise up for a moment before she had a moment to calm herself. She tried to not be argumentative with Ron, and she put extra effort into it lately, but everything he said almost seemed like an accusation, to which she took great offense. Hermione put her heart and soul into trying to make his family feel like a family again, yet he seemed to still want to make jibes at Hermione. She supposed it was because he felt the closest with her and therefore felt like she was the easiest to attack, but when Hermione spent all of her days trying to seem put-together for everyone else, by the end of the day she felt vulnerable and his words simply hurt.

"Of course I'm grieving!" she snapped. She sat fully up. Even though she had only lain down for a few moments, the hair at the back of her head was already frizzier than usual. "Just because I hold it together for everyone else – just because I'm trying my best to make sure –" she couldn't seem to find the right words to say to him to make him understand. Instead, she burst into tears, something that she hadn't done since Fred's funeral. Ron seemed legitimately taken aback by her actions. Hermione kept trying to explain herself, but it came out more like blubbering. For a moment, she had thought that Ron was going to appreciate her, to express himself to her, but of course not. How could Ron? He wasn't empathetic, he couldn't put himself in her shoes, all he could do was be... Ron. She knew that she was being harsh on him in her mind because she was upset but in the moment it was all that she could think about.

"I need some fresh air," Hermione stated abruptly. She stood up and flattened the hair at the back of her hair out of habit.

"Do you want me to come?" he asked.

"No." She tried to sound casual, relaxed, but instead she sounded snappy. "I just want to be alone."

"Look, Hermione, I'm sorry, I just..." Ron trailed off as Hermione left the room. She had expected Ron to follow her, to continue the argument. Instead she actually found herself outside, alone. That in itself made her more upset, that he just seemed like he didn't have the energy to bicker with her anymore. She knew that he cared, but it was like he could only fight so many demons at a time, and right now Hermione didn't take priority. She didn't expect herself to, not because she thought she was unimportant to him, but because he had just lost his brother in a grievous war. Even though Hermione wasn't a Weasley, she too felt the empty hole that Fred's death created. It was larger than she could have imagined and it felt like a black hole that sucked all meaning out of life. She tried to not cave and let it consume her, but sometimes it did, and where did she have to go? She couldn't go to anyone in the house because their loss was greater than hers. Her family wouldn't properly understand. She had created this life so involved with these people that she had never expected that there would be a time where she wished that there was someone else that was on the outside that she could go to before.

Hermione's shoulders shook as she cried. She rested her elbows on her knees as she sat on the step and looked down at her entwined fingers as her tears fell. She didn't think it would be easy after the battle, not after so many losses, but she didn't think it would be this hard.

The door opened behind her and Hermione quickly wiped her eyes with her sleeves. The summer nights had become warm and inviting, and even the breeze was comfortable. She looked behind her with puffy eyes to see George there. They both seemed surprised to see one another.

"Oh. I didn't mean to intrude." George's voice sounded hollow. He turned to go back inside.

"No, please. Stay." Hermione insisted. She scooted over on her spot to make room for him. To her surprise, he accepted her offer.


	2. Distraction

The silence is what got to Hermione the most. George, this usually loving, funny, talkative individual now had nothing to say. He sat next to her, but she may as well have been alone. His elbows were rested on his knees, his hands clasped loosely together, and his head hung. His hair had begun to get a little long, and the red strands moved in the summer night breeze. She gazed at him and expected him to look up at her, but he was clearly too lost in his head. Everything about his demeanour screamed that he was broken. His shoulders were slumped, he was in the same outfit she swore he now wore for the third day in a row, and he just wouldn't look up. In her mind, she was screaming for him to look up, but nothing. It was like George was now a shell of the person that he was before, and Hermione couldn't bear it. Of all the family members and friends that she saw dazed and lost about Fred's death, George's quiet suffering stuck out the most. She could deal with Ron lashing out at her unexpectedly, she could deal with Mrs. Weasley pretending that everything was normal, and she could even deal with Harry's expressed guilt, but this was too much.

Hermione looked away from him and out at the fields that surrounded the house. The small amount of light that escaped the house only went so far and made it look like that everything just faded into oblivion. How she sometimes wished lately that she could just walk out to oblivion so that she could escape being everyone's rock, being the one that everyone turned to and lashed out at and needed. With a house so full and a house so incredibly full of emotion, what Hermione desired most was to be alone. However, sitting next to George almost felt like it was a step better. He didn't expect anything from her, yet she wasn't completely alone.

Hermione, however, couldn't just sit there. It was against everything that she was to just ignore the person hurting next to her, so even though all she wanted to do was continue their silence, she reached out and touched George's shoulder tenderly. She opened her mouth to speak, but he beat her to it.

"You don't need to," he mumbled.

He managed to get the words out so quickly it was like he had expected her to reach out to him. She wondered if he was disappointed that it had taken her so long.

"I just want to help," Hermione explained.

He turned to her and gave her a half-hearted smile. "Believe it or not, just sitting here with you is the most help I could get right now."

Hermione seemed caught off-guard by his sentiment, but then exhaled. She didn't realize that what he said was exactly what she needed. She let her shoulders ease and then rested her head on his shoulder as they stared out at nothingness together. After a while, George's composure slipped for a moment and his shoulders shook for a minute or two, but then he went back to the stoic silence again. It was well into the night before it began to get cold and they both returned into the house.

* * *

The two of them continued their escape at night time. It wasn't every night, and sometimes one would be outside without the other, but soon Hermione found that she had begun to look for him, or look for a sign during the day that he would want to be there. Her days were busy and in a way it helped her, but nothing eased the pain of one of them going to ask Fred for something or calling his name by accident. Nothing could fill the empty silence that followed. In those moments, everything was torn down all over again, no matter what they were doing, whether it was making cookies or cleaning a room. Who could have expected that the loss of one person in such a large family could leave the biggest hole? The Weasleys tried to be together, they tried to work at their grief together, but in the end they found that they tended to struggle. The worst part was that most of them were too stubborn to talk about their feelings or talk about the hurt that they were individually feeling. Hermione understood it, but at the same time she began to nag about it. She kept trying to persuade different family members that if they talked about Fred that maybe they would get used to his name again. However, in her efforts to make things better, many of the family members had begun to resent her efforts and shut themselves away even more.

Hermione wasn't completely ignorant to everyone's feelings toward her, and she tried to not let it bother her. At the same time, though, she had begun to feel sick of the Burrow feeling like an eternal Fred Weasley funeral service. All she wanted was some normalcy not only for herself but for everyone.

"I know you're doing the best you can," Harry said to her one day as they descended the many, many stairs of the building. "But don't you think you're coming off a little strong?"

Hermione tried to pretend that his words didn't sting. "If no one talks about him -"

"Oh, lay off Hermione," Ron said irritably as he came up the stairs past them with toast in his hand.

Ron had become one of the worst in this irritability towards Hermione's new determination for everyone to recognize that Fred was truly gone. Together with his mother, they both showed Hermione hostility that she had never experienced before. It had gotten to the point where their new relationship was almost on the rocks, and although Mrs. Weasley still showed compassion and that she cared for Hermione, there was clear annoyance which almost chased Hermione back home with her parents.

She turned to retort, but Harry grabbed her arm to turn her back around to the direction that they were going. Harry was the only one in the house who wasn't related to Fred, so his grief, like Hermione's, couldn't be as strong as everyone else's. Harry was Hermione's saving grace in the sense that someone else understood from the outside.

As she turned, she went to look back at Ron again only to realize that George had left his bedroom door open. The twins had always been notorious for shutting it, so the sight caught her off-guard and distracted her from her insistence to responding to Ron. George wasn't in the room, and without words, both Harry and Hermione took a step inside.

George's room was a complete mess, like it had always been, but this time it was different. Before, it had been a disaster due to all their inventions and gadgets and such. Now, it was a disaster in the sense that he just didn't feel the motivation to clean up behind himself. He was of age, so Hermione didn't understand why he didn't just clean it with a flick of his wand. She was admittedly disgusted by the half-eaten food and the dirty laundry just sitting about. She took out her wand to just do it quickly for him, but Harry caught her arm again and shook his head.

"It's not your place."

His words had an impact on her and she stowed it away again. It wasn't just this room that Harry had been referring to – Hermione had a feeling that he meant it in general to how she was treating everyone. It wasn't her place to clean George's room, even if it was just a flick of the wand, and it wasn't her place to try to be everyone's therapist. What Hermione needed to be was herself, even if she struggled to do so. Hermione had such a hard time just _being_ that the idea that she didn't have some task or goal in this whole situation meant that she would no longer have a distraction, and in the long term, she supposed that's how she had been holding it together this whole time.


	3. Woken Up

"Alright, this has to be perfect," Mrs. Weasley said as she bustled about her kitchen. Her apron was on despite the fact that her wand was doing all the work. Hermione always found this strangely amusing. Unless she flicked her wrist the wrong way or mumbled the wrong words (which admittedly happened quite frequently), what was the purpose of the apron? All the ingredients poured and mixed themselves and flew exactly where they needed to be. "We mustn't let anything get in the way of Harry having a good birthday."

The thing about Harry's birthday being at the end of July was that no matter what had happened in the school year, his birthday always seemed like a 'reset' of sorts. Mrs. Weasley always found it of utmost importance to make sure Harry had the perfect day – whether that actually got accomplished was a different story – and therefore everyone else in the home had the perfect day as well. Hermione and Ginny always got into the spirit of things, but it always bothered Hermione how the boys tended to sit around and just expect everything to be planned and laid out for them. Where was their initiative and why did they leave it up to the girls to get everything done? When Hermione would explain her frustrations with Ron in hopes that maybe he would show up his brothers by stepping up, he would tell her that she was overreacting.

Ron. She was hoping that perhaps what she would get out of Harry's birthday would be a reconciliation of sorts with her boyfriend. The two were constantly at each other's throats, like what always happened when emotions were high. She wanted those moments back that no one ever knew about. She wanted their meaningful eye contact and those perfect silent evenings where just being together was enough. It was only when he opened his mouth that she would get annoyed. Hermione began to beat the eggs in the dish in front of her a little too roughly at the thought. What was the point in a boyfriend that you couldn't talk to without getting all out of sorts?

"Dearie, didn't I show you that spell on how to do that?" Mrs. Weasley asked when she turned to see why the task was so loud.

Hermione met Ginny's eye over Mrs. Weasley's shoulder and smiled. Ginny knew that Hermione still liked to do things by hand as it made her feel connected with her Muggle roots as well as the fact that she felt like she had accomplished more, but Mrs. Weasley always liked to undermine this behaviour and try to get her to do otherwise. It was like Hermione and Mrs. Weasley were playing a game of 'who did it better,' but Mrs. Weasley had the upper hand because she was older and had the wonderful ability to make what she was telling Hermione sound motherly and teacher-like, where if Hermione did it in return she would sound insubordinate and bossy. Luckily, Ginny was on Hermione's side where Ron liked to tell Hermione to just humour his mother, and besides, "it is faster, after all."

Hermione took out her wand and performed the spell that she had already known since before Mrs. Weasley taught her and the eggs were beaten. She handed them to Mrs. Weasley who smiled at her kindly. There was always some kind of resistance between the two women, but it was never anything serious. It was almost like a kind of typical mother situation, where she wanted to be number one for her son before a girl came in and stole him away. Hermione was fine with this, but to say that she didn't find it grating would be too far.

* * *

"Happy birthday, Harry!" Ginny and Hermione both barraged Harry while he was still sleeping.

Harry pulled the covers over his head as if that would make the two of them go away.

"Come on, Harry, it's your birthday! It only happens once a year!" Ginny exclaimed gleefully as she tried to wrestle the blanket away from him.

"And every year you two do this to me," he grumbled.

"Exactly, so you should have known!" Ginny continued.

Finally, Harry succumbed to Ginny's purposeful annoyance and left his bed – and he was already fully dressed.

"I did know," he responded with a grin. He leaned over and kissed Ginny quickly before he gave Hermione a hug and thanked them both for their birthday wishes. Even though he had been dressed in bed, it didn't mean that he was actually fully awake – the bags under his eyes told a different story.

Hermione went alone to go wake up Ron. She crept into his dark room (he had blackout curtains) and tried to tickle him away.

"Gerroff," he mumbled incoherently as he tried to turn over.

Hermione did as she was told and then went to open the curtains and let sunshine in. Ron groaned loudly in protest.

"It's Harry's birthday!"

"It's not some bloody holiday though, is it?" Ron asked, although he did sit up in bed. Ron was an excellent sleeper and although he begrudged getting up in the morning, he was always well rested. His cheeks were rosy from being buried under practically one hundred blankets, his hair was a mess, and his eyes were vibrantly blue. It was always in the morning that Hermione felt like she loved him most, grouchy or not. The innocence in his early morning freckled face always reminded her that under the sarcasm and biting remarks that he was actually a good and caring, and sometimes misdirected, young man.

Hermione walked over to him and kissed him. At first the kiss was unsure, unexpected, but then Ron eased into it. He pulled her onto the bed so that they sat side-by-side. Her hands were in his wild morning hair and his were at her waist. Their lips moved more strongly against each other and Ron moved in closer. Hermione began to lean back on the bed, feeling overwhelmed by the sensations that they were feeling. Granted, the two had snogged before, but never quite like _this_. Even though they slept in the same bed together every night, so far nothing more than that had happened. Hermione wasn't quite ready, as their relationship was still relatively new after all, no matter how long she had known him. She knew that she trusted Ron, and if she chose to go there that he wouldn't do anything stupid to ruin it all, but she had never felt the impulse before – not until that moment.

One of Ron's hands moved from her waist and went to unbutton her jeans. At first Hermione pulled away and looked him in the eyes before she reached down and unbuttoned them for him. With this permission, Ron seemed to get a burst of energy that he always pretended that he didn't have in the morning. However, just as he was about to cross a line that he didn't think he would be able to cross for some time now, George walked into the room. With Ron and Hermione's hair the way it was and how her jeans were undone (but she was still unexposed), it was clear what he had just walked into.

"Oh, blimey," George said, and he had the decency to sound embarrassed. "Mum told me to come wake you up, Ron, breakfast is ready, but I guess Hermione thought of a better way to get you out of bed."

Hermione quickly buttoned her jeans back up and attempted to flatten her hair. Her cheeks were red and she felt like she was on the verge of tears. Ron took a nearby shoe and threw it at George, who retreated and shut the door behind himself.

"Why didn't you lock the door?" Ron asked of Hermione.

"I... I wasn't planning on this!" she exclaimed as she stood up.

Ron grabbed her by the wrist and tried to pull her back to bed. "Come on, he didn't see anything..."

"But if we don't go downstairs now, everyone will know what we're doing!"

Grumpily, Ron agreed and got dressed. The two went down the stairs to join everyone for breakfast, but Hermione's mind was still in Ron's bedroom and all the things that they could have been doing.


	4. Family

The backyard was decorated as if they were prepared for a wedding. They had enough decorations left over from the disaster that had been Fleur and Bill's ceremony the year previous, which now served as decorations for Harry's party. As the day wore on, more and more people showed up. Many were simply acquaintances. Hermione realized it was more than just Harry's 18th birthday for most of them, though. It was a chance to start fresh – it was the first happy event since the war. Many wanted a way to show their condolences for the Weasley family as well without it being formal. The funeral had been so private, so simple. Fred's funeral had been mixed among so many that had occurred after the war. It felt as if he had just been a number. Hermione remembered her intense sadness over the event. Fred had always been full of life and adventure, and in death hardly anyone had been there to remember. It was like he had simply vanished. It didn't feel real that one day he could be there and the next day he could be gone.

Hermione held a drink in her hand and watched the party goers muddle around. Ron was in deep conversation with Harry and Lee Jordan about something. He caught her eye and smiled, which she returned. She knew that he loved attention, and it warmed her heart when he got it. When Ron got attention was when he was at his best. He was friendly, warm, and sociable. Hermione had lingered with Ron for most of the day but had begun to get tired. People exhausted Hermione and she felt as if she needed some time to reenergize on her own. It was hard to do when the backyard and the house were all full of people.

Despite the crowd, the home felt eerily empty. There were no unexpected explosions or hoots and hollers from the twins. In fact, George seemed so completely sombre on his own on the back step that one would have expected that he was the shy one of the bunch. When Ginny vacated the spot next to her brother to rejoin Harry, Hermione felt herself compelled to fill it.

"Is it your turn to tell me it'd be good to socialize?" George asked without looking at her. His brown eyes were taking in everyone who walked about and his drink was ¾ of the way full still.

"No, actually, I came for some quiet." Her tone was flat and final.

Everything seemed like it was in a blur. It was like all the guests were just ghosts and Hermione was looking upon a memory that didn't belong to her. She felt like none of this was real and it was all a nightmare. How could she properly explain that Fred and George had been two of the greatest lights of her life? When she was stressed and tightly wound, even though they could drive her crazy, they always managed to bring a smile to her face. They frequently acted like an equalizer for her. It wasn't to say that no one else could make Hermione smile, but she never realized how much she truly turned to them when she expected something crazy to happen. Without them, everything seemed so bland. She wanted George to step up and crack a joke, maybe add a sad smile to the end, but it was nothing. George was a shell of the man he used to be. She wasn't sure which bothered her more: the family who was going on about their lives as if everything was fine, or George who didn't seem to know how to exist without his brother. She didn't know where she belonged, either. Some days she felt like she was with the family, but it all felt forced. Did it feel that way to them, too, or had they made it to the point where they accepted Fred's death?

"Hermione, you don't have to keep me company," George informed her. "I'm fine."

"You're not," Hermione replied. He turned and opened his mouth to argue, but she finished with, "But neither am I."

He didn't know quite what to say to that. He paused and thought upon his words. "I didn't know he meant that much to you."

She felt hurt by his words. " _He didn't mean that much to me_?" Hermione repeated. "This family is the one constant thing in my life, and that includes _all_ of you," she rambled quite quickly. "How am I supposed to register all these feelings? How am I supposed to pretend that my heart doesn't ache when I'm not kept up by the sounds of explosions, or that I don't feel like falling to pieces when I'm upset and there's no one to crack a lame joke or keep me distracted from my thoughts?" All the words sort of just fell out of her. She didn't want to burden him with this, but she felt the incredible need to explain herself. "You two were always just... there. We might not have been the best of friends, but we were family. Fred was my family. _You're_ my family." She took a shuddering breath. A tear fell, but as she went to wipe it away, she found George's hand already upon her cheek.

Her hand touched his and she looked into his eyes and was startled to find them full of tears as well. Other than immediately after Fred's death, Hermione hadn't seen him cry. She felt a connection to him in that moment and she leaned into his hand. She let his warmth run through her and she closed her eyes. Suddenly, though, he pulled his hand away. She looked to see what the issue was, and Ron had come towards them. A guilty emotion passed through her that she tried to ignore. Had Ron come over because he saw their moment? No, his face looked too exuberant. By the redness in his cheeks it was obvious that he had drunk a fair amount, and it didn't take much to get him drunk.

"Hermione, come back to the party," Ron insisted. He reached his hand out, which Hermione took. As she allowed Ron to lead her away, she looked back at George with an apologetic look on her face.


	5. Teddy

"No, no, I'm alright," Hermione said with a shake of her head. Her hands were up in front of her as a way to be able to back up slightly. Harry stood before her with a tiny baby in his arms. The baby's hair turned rapidly from green to red to black. She was startled that Teddy had the ability to do that already. It seemed like it was all he could do, outside of the occasional small smile. Evidently he had just learned to laugh, too. He looked at her with currently brown eyes and then away again.

"Hermione, you've yet to hold him," Harry said. Even though he was freshly eighteen, Harry was Teddy's godfather. Hermione was somewhat surprised about how avidly he took on the role. Sometimes he and Ginny looked as if they were Teddy's parents, especially considering the amount of time they spent with the boy. Harry's green eyes gleamed with pride, but also sadness. Every time he held Teddy, that sadness was there, but Hermione didn't say a thing. This little boy was the last remaining piece of Remus and Tonks, and Hermione felt as if she would break him.

"He's just so... small." She had never had a fear of holding babies before, but then again, she never really had to. As an only child with a small family, it just never seemed to come up. She liked the feeling of something sturdy in her hands, like a large book. Even if she were to drop it, it would still most likely be fine. Teddy was just a small baby, a tiny human that could break if one was to look at him the wrong way. She couldn't risk doing something to harm him, and didn't know why Harry was so insistent.

"When he grows up, he won't know whether I held him as a practical newborn," Hermione continued.

"Why don't you sit and hold him then?" he suggested. He could sense that she was wildly uncomfortable, and in a way it actually amused him. Hermione wasn't bothered by much. She even had been able to say Voldemort's name without flinching, but here and now she was frozen with fear about holding Harry's godson.

Hermione bit her lip and sat, to the joking applause of the others in the room. She had forgotten they were there in her moment of panic. She found a squashy arm chair, one that would practically swallow her so that Teddy would have nowhere to go ... not that he was overly mobile at the moment. Harry didn't give her much time to get comfortable and handed Teddy over gently with extra care on his neck. Harry had the impulse to startle Hermione, but figured she'd think it cruel and never hold the baby again.

Teddy's weight in her arms was a strange sensation. Despite the fact that he didn't weigh much, he felt heavy. She nestled him close and Teddy looked up at her with wide eyes. Every time she had seen him before now it seemed as if he was either asleep or crying, so his newfound focus surprised her. She held him close to her face, higher than necessary. She had read somewhere that young babies didn't have great eyesight, and if she was going to hold him, she'd be damned if he couldn't see her. Teddy's hair then went from a vibrant teal to a more mousy brown – almost the exact same shade as Hermione's. His whole face looked as if the features had changed slightly. It had happened so gradually that it took her a moment to register what had happened.

"Looks like he likes how you look," Ron stated from the couch next to her.

"Don't we all?" George cracked, only to receive Ron's elbow to the ribs.

Hermione smiled, but didn't look up from the baby. As adorable as he was, she suddenly felt quite anxious and as if someone had just poured a bucket of ice water over her. Teddy would never know his parents, those two brave souls that Hermione had greatly admired. Tonks had felt like a sister to her. Remus had been one of her best professors. Now both of them were dead, long gone, never to be spoken to again. Hermione had gone months before without speaking to Tonks or Remus, so not enough time had passed before now for her to really grasp the permanency of their deaths. Now it hit her like a ton of bricks and she had to gasp to catch her breath.

Harry tuned into Hermione's panic and immediately took Teddy away from her. She grasped at her chest as if she couldn't breathe and she bent over so her head was between her knees. It felt like her emotions were consuming her, her pain overwhelming and never ending. Everything seemed like it was crashing around her and it wouldn't end. She knew that this was a panic attack. Even though Hermione was quite high strung, she had never actually experienced a true panic attack before. She was always going from one thing to the next so she never really had time to register what was going on around her. It was different now, and it hurt so tremendously.

"Hermione, are you alright?" it was Ron at her shoulder. He rubbed her back reassuringly.

"They're gone," she whispered. She looked up at him as tears streamed down her face. "They're never coming back."

"Who?" Ron asked without thinking.

"Everyone!" she exclaimed. She took a few more deep breaths before she was able to continue. "Remus... Tonks... Fred... " she let out an involuntary sob. She felt so weak.

Ron pulled her out of the chair and onto the floor as he wrapped her into a hug. At this point, she cried so hard that she didn't even think it was possible for her to open her eyes.

"I just want them back," she murmured after a long while. She wiped her puffy eyes and leaned away from him. "I never thought... I never even truly considered that any of us would die... it sounds silly, doesn't it?"

"Not at all," George said from across the room.

Everyone fell silent.


End file.
